Wanna know what I think, as a bona fide military girlfriend? I think they should have porn in the PX, especially if all we’re talking about is Playboy and Penthouse. Men need to see naked women, and these men happen to be spending months at a time in forced celibacy, and if they want to look at a pretty girl’s boobies and release some of that, uhhh, energy, more power to ‘em. I have absolutely no problem with it and like I said, I’d send those mags to my own boyfriend if I could, once he gets to Iraq.

It’s not a good idea to deny these kinds of things to young men who are forced to spend all their waking hours in the company of other men. Bad things happen when you do that, especially in a high stress environment, like a combat zone. It would seem to be this is just moralistic grandstanding on the part of a certain politician.

The trick is, once you get the soldier’s OK (don’t just send stuff, they could get in trouble), tuck playboys into cheerios boxes and re-glue them.

Porn is a lot easier to smuggle past the military mail snoops that you’d think. Sure, some folks might consider it a bad idea to break the rules, but I have too much respect for my friends who are or have served over there to worry about trifling anti-porn rules. If my buddy is over there getting shot at or bombed, then he damn well deserves a playboy under his mattress.

I say we should be sending booze and hookers over. Encourage our soldiers to enjoy their time away from the battlefield in drunken orgys while gorging themselves with bacon. The fact that it ticks the Saudis off too . . . well thats just icing on the cake.

A couple of years ago – at a previous job – we did a Christmas stocking stuffer drive for the soldiers. I went on to iTunes and downloaded about 20 of the years best CDs (plus a couple of other good ones) and burnt 10 copies each to include with the stuffing. Added a couple of copied interactive adult DVDs to the mix too and best as I can tell the whole package went through.

1. Statement of Military Purpose & Necessity: Operation Desert Shield places United States Armed Forces into USCENTCOM AOR countries where Islamic law and Arabic customs prohibit or restrict certain activities which are generally permissible in western societies. Restrictions upon these activities are essential to preserving U.S. host nation relations and the combined operations of U.S. and friendly forces.

2. Prohibited Activities:

a. Purchase, possession. use or sale of privately owned firearm, ammunition, explosives, or the introduction of these items into the USCENTCOM AOR.

b. Entrance into a mosque or other site of Islamic religious significance by non-moslem’s unless directed to do so by military authorities or required by military necessity.

d. Introduction, possession, transfer, sale, creation, or display of any pornographic photograph, videotape, movie, drawing, book, or magazine, or similar representations. For purposes of this order, “pornographic” means any medium which displays human genitalia, uncovered women’s breasts or any human sexual act. It is intended to include not only “obscene items,” but items of “art” which display human genitalia, uncovered women’s breasts, or any human sexual act.

e. The introduction, possession, transfer, sale, creation, or display of any sexually explicit photograph, videotape, movie, drawing, book, or magazine. For purposes of this order, “sexually explicit” means any medium displaying the human anatomy in any unclothed or semi-clothed manner and which displays portions of the human torso (i.e., the area below the neck, above the knees and inside the shoulder). By way of example, but not limitation, are body building magazines, swim-suit editions of periodicals, lingerie or underwear advertisements and catalogues, as well as visual mediums which infer but do not directly show human genitalia, women’s breasts, or human sexual acts.

[…]

8. Expiration: This general order will expire upon the completion of Operation Desert Shield unless rescinded, waived, or modified.

Nearly the exact same thing keeps getting renewed, it’s always part of the predeployment brief.

The troops can easily purchase it from locals (kids usually, from what I hear) as long as they’re careful not to be too obvious about it. Don’t want to PO the local sensibilities, but then again it’s the locals selling it to make a few dinars.